


The Euphemism

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Flashbacks, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, Kinda, Late Night Conversations, Optimistic Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, i doubt that aligns with any actual tags but that's the other reason for the E rating, just because no standard archive warnings apply doesn't mean this isn't intense, like seriously the suicidal ideation is the reason for the E rating here, no actual sexual content, references to canonical (failed) suicide attempt, set shortly after Avengers 1 (2012), suicidal ideation that reads like sexual euphemisms, superheroes getting the therapy they need
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-23 12:49:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23711773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Bruce hears a phrase that sticks with him in the wrong way
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark
Kudos: 18
Collections: anonymous





	The Euphemism

**Author's Note:**

> cw for mild trans erasure (there are no trans characters around to be hurt by this, just a moment of assuming genitals=gender. Blink and you'll miss it, but worth the warning anyway)

Bruce found a bag of grapes in the fridge and padded quietly through the dark halls back toward his room. Insomnia kept him up more often than not but Bruce found this time of night peaceful. It was dim, and quiet, and without the chaos of the rest of the Avengers running about, the four others that stuck around always seeming to run in twelve different directions at once, and the impression wasn't heped by the frequent visits from SHIELD handlers to give Natasha and Clint instructions, and Ms. Potts' frequent appearances to convince Tony to do “real work”. But this time of night, when he was the only one awake, it was nice.

Well. Almost the only one. As he approached Tony's room there was no missing the light peeking around the doorframe. In the quiet of the night, Bruce could even hear the cadence of Tony's voice indistinctly through the walls, pausing occasionally as though he were on the phone.

As Bruce was walking past Tony's room, the mumbling resolved into words.

"--image out of my head. It makes me want to give a blowjob to a shotgun."

It was said so casually, only slightly cruder than Tony's usual posturing, that Bruce was halfway through rolling his eyes at playboy Tony Stark wanting to give someone a blowjob (was he gay? bi? Bruce was impressed Tony had been able to keep that from the media) before the last word sunk in.

He froze mid-step. Tony wasn't talking about sexual conquests.

A flood of emotions hit Bruce so suddenly he couldn't identify them all. Tony's voice and a quieter, electronic one, seemed to fade into a buzz. A chill ran down his spine, and he felt his heart rate starting to pick up.

That last sensation jolted him back into motion. This wasn't anger, wasn't really fear, wasn't even a matter of his own survival, but now he urgently needed to get back to his room and make sure the Other Guy wouldn't make an appearance. The Other Guy would be fine, falling from a skyscraper; he'd proven that last week. Normal humans wouldn't be so lucky.

He walked away briskly, barely aware that Jarvis' voice seemed to have joined the mix.

Over the next few days, Bruce found he couldn't get the phrase out of his head. The idea of giving a _blowjob_ to a shotgun. At random times he would find himself imagining a mouth opening, tongue curling in heated anticipation of the shaft it was about to accept, salivating, teasing, as the cold tang of gunmetal settled upon it.

The mouth wasn't attached to Tony's face, nor Bruce's own. It wasn't really a face at all besides that a mouth wouldn't exist without a face, but the gun... The image often shifted from a long, double barreled shotgun into something shorter, with a single barrel, as the tongue made contact with metal.

It made his stomach flip and his own tongue burn with the acrid taste of gunpowder.

The team could tell something was wrong too. Steve started asking if he was okay, and looking unconvinced when Bruce insisted he was. Natasha resumed skirting the edges of any space Bruce shared with her, and Bruce even caught Tony giving him odd, assessing, looks. He couldn't blame them. He kept his tone carefully even and his words gentle, but he was more aware than anyone just how volatile his emotions were.

He didn't even want to die. Right? He had tried once. He'd tried exactly once to swallow a gun, and the Other Guy wouldn't let him, but that was over a year ago, and he had come to terms with continuing to exist. He had proven he could live safely with the Other Guy in sufficiently rural areas, and even that he could channel the Other Guy into protecting humanity instead of just wrecking things. He had _accepted_ his life, and he was more scared of oblivion than of sharing his body with the Other Guy. He didn't want to kill himself. Did he?

Still, the image stayed with him. Bruce locked himself in his room as often as he could get away with, trying to distract himself with all the scientific journals Jarvis could provide, puzzles, anything to occupy his mind with something safe. He ventured out for food, and in the dead of night, and rarely else, but his eyes were on the light end of hazel every time he looked in the mirror, rather than his usual brown, and the tongue remained eager every time it interrupted his thoughts.

“Hey, Big Guy.” Tony's voice brought Bruce abruptly back to reality, away from that tongue, salivating as it stretched for the tip...

“Tony,” Bruce greeted tiredly. It wasn't quite four in the morning, there was still more than an hour until the sun would rise. They were the only ones in the kitchen.

“Hey, since we're both awake, would you join me in my lab?” Tony asked, far more energetically than was reasonable at this time of day. “I'm upgrading the suit and there's a bit I'd like your expertise on.”

“I thought food wasn't allowed in your lab,” Bruce observed, not quite a question, gesturing with the bowl of chicken salad he had been about to squirrel away to his room. It had three slices of bread set on top of the chicken, a miserable attempt at a sandwich.

“Except coffee,” Tony affirmed. “But I'll make an exception if you keep it near the door. Besides, DUM-E regularly makes more of a mess than you could with that.”

Bruce opened his mouth to protest, but Tony wasn't done. “C'mon, I haven't been able to find my Science Buddy for _days_ and it shouldn't take that long.”

“Fine, alright. What is it you need me for?” Bruce acquiesced.

“Excellent! Let's go!” Tony whirled around to lead the way to the labs, ignoring the question. Bruce followed warily. Either he had been hiding away too long, or something was _off_ about Tony's usual enthusiasm.

When they arrived at the lab, left his bowl on the indicated table, and listened as Tony explained the task to him. “This is just an antenna,” he observed. “There is _no_ way you need me for this.” Gamma rays were electromagnetic radiation, just like the radio waves used for communication, so this was, arguably, his area of expertise, but Tony should be just as capable.

“No, no, I showed you those waveforms,” Tony countered. He was already halfway across the room but he gestured back over his shoulder at the hologram of a spectrum analyzer he'd had Jarvis pull up. Two waveforms were shown, one in green that Tony intended to use, and another in cyan that seemed to fill in all the gaps in the first. “We want to make an antenna that's _completely_ insensitive to those 'restricted' frequencies, while picking up all the rest. It should give me a cleaner connection to Jarvis”

Bruce glanced at the density of the simulated constellation plot. Having a clean signal was definitely a priority. “I agree with your analysis,” he admitted, signaling Jarvis to bring up notes on tests that had already been run on the wires at his workstation. “But you've shown off more intricate radio devices. Why did you really bring me down here?”

“Am I not allowed to miss my Science Buddy and want to work together again?” Tony asked, after an uncharacteristic beat of silence, but with such petulant bravado that Bruce nearly bought it. He chose not to respond, and watched as Tony absently twisted a screwdriver into the coil of what must have once been a grounding wrist strap, and left it hanging there while he picked up another tool.

After another, longer silence, Tony sighed, not looking up from the pieces of his gauntlet. “Jarvis tells me you overheard part of my call the other day and got upset.” Bruce had never heard this quiet, serious tone from Tony. Even his Serious Science voice projected more enthusiasm.

“I...” Bruce wasn't sure how to respond. Probably, he should be more concerned for his friend, who had expressed a desire to kill himself, but since Tony hadn't been acting any differently during the day, that obviously wasn't a new development, and Bruce was more upset with his own brain for fixating. He tasted gunpowder again, iron and ash, and clenched his fist with his thumb inside to erase the sensation (the memory) of a trigger under his thumb.

“Don't try to tell me you're okay,” Tony instructed. “Capsicle doesn't buy it and neither do I.”

Bruce understood why Tony wasn't looking up from his work. He wasn't sure he could maintain eye contact for this conversation either. He turned back to his workstation, halfheartedly rearranging the models in the air around him, and staring at a blank notepad. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth,” Tony said simply. “Or wait, let me guess. You look around, and you see the damage to New York City and you can't help but feel like you caused it all.” He didn't pause when Bruce flinched at the accuracy of the statement. “You feel like you'll never be able to escape the damage and suffering you've caused.” That was another dead ringer. “You've convinced yourself the world would be better off without you.” Three. "You have vivid, possibly exaggerated memories of the damage you've caused that you see when you close your eyes." Four “And you've faced certain death, and you regret surviving, but you also feel guilty for that regret.”

Bruce had both hands clenched now, eyes shut, trying to breathe deeply, to calm himself under a familiar tension building under his skin. Anger would cause the Other Guy to come out more readily than other emotions, but with the accuracy of Tony's “guessing” he felt vulnerable and completely exposed. And even though it was an emotional response, the Other Guy was ready to come out and protect them both from harm. The Other Guy wanted to live.

“How...?” Bruce croaked out. It was obvious Tony was speaking from experience, but how did he know Bruce felt the same? With his eyes closed, fuzzy, half-memories threatened to overwhelm him. Memories of shoving his (huge, green) hand into buildings, breaking concrete to stop his own fall, of smashing heads together, never mind that they were alien heads, of ripping aircraft (human and alien) apart, and the satisfaction of destruction.

“Pepper pointed out you were acting like I had, when I got back from Afghanistan.” Tony explained simply. “And I've lived those feelings, so I knew what to look for.

Tony's uncharacteristic gentle honesty was distracting enough to bring Bruce back from the edge. He remembered abruptly how many other life-threatening situations the news had reported Tony getting caught up in, before he carried the nuke through the portal, and felt guilty that Tony might consider Bruce's two near-death experiences at all comparable, especially since one was entirely... maybe not planned, but consciously self inflicted.

“I'd like to introduce you to my therapist,” Tony continued, and Bruce was startled to recognize that the untouchable Tony Stark was showing vulnerability in exchange for the wounds he was prodding open. “He's a great guy – army guy – works with people who've been on the front lines, and he's very careful about patient privacy.” Tony paused, and grinned at Bruce, an echo of his usual humor. “You didn't even know I had a therapist did you? We've kept that from the media and I _don't_ want that to change.”

Bruce took a deep breath. He knew his reactions were telling but wasn't willing to talk about himself. But Tony seemed to be in an honest mood, and he'd brought it up... “You said you wanted to... swallow a gun,” Bruce went with the more popular version of the euphemism. No need to admit exactly what he had been fixating on. “Are _you_ okay?”

“I probably said I'd like to give a gun a _blowjob_ ,” Tony answered immediately, with a slight leer. “I'd rather spit than swallow, you know?” He was unmoved by Bruce's unimpressed glare. “But don't worry. I'm not going to do that.” He paused just long enough for Bruce to decide he was far too chipper about that statement. “If I was going to kill myself, I'd pick something way more glamorous, to live up to the Stark name.”

“What, like an overdose?” Bruce didn't remember what other things celebrities got attention for dying from. Besides crashing their private planes or helicopters, and Tony was more likely to fly the suit somewhere than ride in a helicopter.

“Nah, something flashier than that. Memorable. Haven't really decided,” Tony quipped right back. “Or,” he said, humor fading, “I could easily make it look like a tragic inevitability,” he gestured at himself, at his chest, and it took Bruce a minute to figure out what he meant. “Because honestly, _I_ miniaturized the arc reactor. If it fails, who's going to know if it was a genuine malfunction, or self-sabotage? Certainly not the coroner.”

“I would know,” Bruce replied, sternly. He found he was upset at the thought of Tony dying, not just as a teammate, or as a fellow scientist, but as a _friend_.

“Nah, you would only be guessing,” Tony countered. “You'd be suspicious at most; couldn't prove anything.” He paused. “Don't worry, I won't do that either.”

“Why should I believe you won't?” Bruce asked, perhaps a little too aggressively, but it was easier to focus on worrying about someone else than to stew in his own brain.

“Why should I believe _you_ won't? You've tried before!”

Bruce flinched. Iron and ash and cold, cold metal. Did he regret trying, or did he regret surviving? He had that gun for a grand total of ten hours, but it was imprinted on his memory forever. Mainly how it had looked, how it had felt and smelled and tasted, before the Other Guy left it a mangled wreck.

Tony hissed in an audible breath. “Too far, sorry.”

Bruce didn't react. He couldn't. He was barely holding himself together against the despair of failure. He had failed then, he was failing to control himself now...

“Big Guy.Banner. _Bruce_.” Tony waited until Bruce glanced over at him, though he couldn't hold eye contact more than an instant. “I'm sorry. That crossed a line.” He sounded sincere.

Bruce wasn't fighting anger at Tony, only frustration at himself. He shouldn't have asked, he shouldn't have gotten food when he did. Should've should've should've. He sighed, and offered a shrug. No one's fault but his own that his brain was fucked up.

“So... My therapist. You'll talk to him, right?” Tony asked, sounding anxious to fill the silence. “That's who I was talking to when you heard... that. He's really great. They made me talk to him in Afghanistan, and he saw right through my bullshit trying to insist I was fine, just half starved, and he emailed me once a week to check in after I got back until Pepper bullied me into writing back. And the media would have a field day if they knew, but they don't. He protects that information _so_ much better than the rehab centers I got sent to as a teenager. It took Jarvis days to find my own records in his system, and Jarvis is the most sophisticated AI in the world.”

“Thank you sir,” Jarvis chimed in drily.

“Yeah, fine.” Bruce agreed wearily, “I'll talk to him.” Anything to shut Tony up right now.

“Great! I'll set it up!” Tony declared. He gave Bruce an appraising once-over. “Get some sleep, Big Green. You can help me with this 'just an antenna' when you're feeling better.”

Bruce couldn't help but give Tony an incredulous look.

“Yes, you got me, the receiver was a blatant ploy to get you in here and talking. Now go to bed, you look worse than _me_ and that's saying something. I'll let you know when I've got that meeting scheduled.”

“Who died and made you Captain?” Bruce grumped, as he stepped obediently towards the door.

“No one!” Tony answered, entirely too chipper again. “And let's keep it that way! But this has always been my building. And _my_ lab. Now out with you! And get your food out of here! This was a one-time exception!”

Bruce rolled his eyes and collected his bowl on the way out. He made it halfway back to his room before the feeling of _vulnerability_ hit him again, and all the way back before he had to slump against the door with his head in his hands, sliding slowly down until he was sitting on the floor. Fortunately, despair was one of the few strong emotions he could feel without having to worry about the Other Guy.

Bruce had revealed his former attempt while trying to remind Fury of the futility of trying to contain the Other Guy, while they were all affected by the Tesseract. But that was almost safe to mention. It was a long time ago, and he had convinced himself he was over it. But his failure, tonight, to contradict Tony's assumption that he still wished he had succeeded... That was vulnerability, that was admitting weakness _now_. Talking about things was supposed to help, but he only felt raw, exposed.

Bruce sat there, trying to breathe and focus on nothing at all, until after the sun was up, until he finally felt tired enough to sleep. He debated sleeping on the floor, but he knew his back would murder him when he woke up, if he tried that, so he dragged himself into bed, where he, for once, slept like a rock.

When Bruce woke up, the sky was already orange with sunset.

“Dr Banner, Sir has asked me to inform you that he has scheduled that meeting for 11pm this evening. Please join him in the lab at the appropriate time.” Jarvis said, when Bruce was finally dressed and moving towards the door.

“At 11pm?” Bruce echoed. “Who works at that hour?” he asked rhetorically. He knew several academics who would, but doctors' offices tended to keep traditional hours.

“The conference call is with an individual in Afghanistan,” Jarvis explained. “It will be 7:30am for him.”

“That'll do it,” Bruce muttered. His gaze fell upon the bowl of chicken salad from the night before and he bent down to scoop it up.

“I would recommend not eating that,” Jarvis volunteered. “It has been unrefrigerated for over 14 hours, which is more than enough time for –”

“ _Thank you_ Jarvis,” Bruce interrupted. He knew enough microbiology to know better.

“You are most welcome Dr. Banner.” Jarvis replied, and Bruce felt oddly mocked. He ate the top slice of bread anyway.

He had slept well for once, and didn't feel like one more suspicious look from Natasha would push him over the edge today, so he took the bowl back to the kitchen, in the daylight. As soon as he stepped into the common area separating the kitchen from the media center, he heard Tony's voice.

“Welcome back to the land of sun, Big Guy. Do you still remember what it looks like?”

Bruce glanced over at Tony. Clint was staring incredulously at Tony, his video game skiier crashing into a fence and drawing his attention back when the controller vibrated to announce his 'death' and respawn. It was as though everyone else had forgotten how much control he had on letting the Other Guy out, like they thought the slightest annoyance would make him dangerous. He hated being treated like spun glass. But Tony was treating him like normal again. Being relaxed enough to be an ass. That was... something.

“It looks kind of like like the moon” Bruce quipped right back. “except it doesn't have phases, right?”

“And it hurts to look at,” Tony agreed cheerfully, turning back to the game. “Be careful with that, I don't have the tech to fix your eyes if you forget and stare at it.”

Bruce felt his lips twitching towards a smile. It almost felt like things were back to normal.

When 11pm rolled around, Bruce met Tony in the lab again, without food this time. Tony had a tablet ready, with a video conferencing app open. When the screen lit up with an incoming call, announcing Dr. Yang, Tony answered it before Bruce could decide if he was ready.

After introductions all around, Dr. Yang, a man wearing ACUs with gray around his temples, chased Tony out of the room.

“Yeah yeah, I'm going,” Tony answered, his bravado trying to imply that he didn't have a care in the world. “Big Guy, this tablet is yours. Jarvis will encrypt it for you but he won't record anything.”

“Thanks,” Bruce cautiously accepted it.

“ _Stark_.”

“I'm going, I'm going”

“Is he really?,” Dr. Yang asked, after a moment.

“Yeah, he left,” Bruce answered, glancing at the door Tony had disappeared through.

“Good. I have an important question for you, Banner,” Dr. Yang said. “Do you _want_ to work with me. Stark says you ought to, but it'll only work if you want it. And I know my hours are inconvenient for those of you back in the States. If you would like to talk to someone, but not at this time, I could recommend you someone local. I could recommend people in New York City, or if you're willing to be in contact remotely, I could recommend an excellent veterans' group in DC. They're in your time zone.”

“Working with you is fine,” Bruce decided. He was relatively new to being in the national spotlight – even in academia, he was known to a very limited audience (arguably, _he_ wasn't famous, just the Other Guy, but they were too closely connected for Bruce to be a nobody) – so he was willing to defer to Tony's judgement on who could be trusted. “It's a bit late, but I've always been a bit of a night owl. This should be fine.”

“Okay.” Yang nodded. “Now, tell me why Stark insisted we work together.”

“Didn't Tony tell you already?” Bruce asked. He was reluctant to open up too quickly to a stranger, even one his friend trusted.

“Stark told me what _he_ thinks is going on in your head. I'd like to hear it from you. He might not be right.”

Bruce took a deep breath. “I'm sure you've heard about what happened in New York a couple weeks ago?” Dr. Yang nodded, encouraging him to go on. “Among the so called heroes that fought the aliens, you remember the big green one wrecking buildings as much as aliens and their vehicles? That was me. He caused... _I_ caused a lot of damage to the city, and this wasn't even the first time....”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I posted this on anon to avoid alerting one particular subscriber who would worry (L, if you're reading this anyway, I'm fine I promise), but I have no plans to orphan it. I will read and appreciate all comments and I might even respond <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Worst Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25595854) by Anonymous 




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